Body’s got anything missing—a hand or a foot or head—you shade it black in the paperwork.
I blinked. Bell stood by the victim’s right hand, removing the cinched bag that had been placed over it at the crime scene to preserve evidence. After she photographed and examined John Doe’s hand and forearm and clipped his fingernails, she gave Miller the go-ahead to create a fingerprint card.
“No defensive wounds,” she said.
Bandoni nodded. “He was surprised.”
“Or intimidated,” I said.
Bell continued her exam. “There’s a pair of tattoos on the inside of his upper right arm.”
She turned the arm so that we could see one of the tats—a two-inch-long line ending with a hook. It looked like a shepherd’s staff. The line was set inside a tattooed triangle.
Bandoni leaned in. “Never seen that before.”
“That symbol might have been at the crime scene,” I said. “Next to the fabric. It looked like words had been scratched in the dirt, then mostly scuffed out. Gabel thought it was a capital letter. Possibly a T or an L. But it could also be this symbol.”
“The tattoo is only a week or two old.” Bell gently stretched the skin. “You see how the skin is flaking? And here”—she pointed—“the red streaking?”
We nodded.
“The tattoo was in the itchy phase, which occurs seven to fourteen days after the skin is inked. The red marks show he was scratching himself.” She lifted John Doe’s arm higher. “This second tattoo is newer.”
We leaned closer. The second design was larger and looked homemade. It consisted of the universal symbols for men and women stacked on top of each other.
“Antemortem?” Bandoni asked.
“Correct. But it’s fresher. There is oozing and swelling. My guess is that it happened only a day or two before he died.”
We took photos of the tattoo, then focused on the ripped and bloody dress. The way it had twisted around his legs, presumably in the last moments of his life, the fabric so saturated with blood that it had stiffened into a rigid coil.
“The dress is a poor fit,” Bell said.
“So maybe not something he picked out himself?” Bandoni said.
“You’re the detectives.”
When we’d noted most of the damage, the technician turned the body—still in the bag—so that Bell could unzip the dress.
She paused with the zipper halfway down and frowned.
“What?” Bandoni said.
“Just a minute,” she said, “and I’ll show you.”
She and the tech tilted and rolled the body to remove the dress, then laid the garment out on a plastic-covered gurney.
“No underwear,” Bell said.
We stared at the corpse, which—stripped—displayed a vivid array of bruises along the torso and thighs.
“He was beaten,” I said.
“And worse.” Bell gestured to the tech. “Let’s turn him over.”
When I saw what had caught Bell’s attention, my chest began to burn.
“Oh, Lord,” Miller whispered.
Bandoni said, “Fuck me.”
Someone had carved words into John Doe’s flesh. They’d started with the skin between his shoulder blades and cut all the way down to the base of his spine. The wounds were deep but precise, etched with a tool or a very sharp blade. Whoever did this had taken their time, carving slowly, meticulously slicing a message into their victim’s flesh.
BETRAY ME WITH A KISS
Then a deep slash across his midback, left to right, as if to separate the messages. And the words LIFE OF THE FLESH IS IN THE BLOOD.
Only the word Life was carved. The rest of the message was written in black ink. As if the scribe had grown weary of the work.
“The hell does it mean?” Bandoni muttered.
Miller cleared his throat. “The part about betraying with a kiss. That’s from the Bible. Judas kissed Jesus to signal to the soldiers which man they should arrest.”
Bandoni snapped his fingers. “Judas. Right.” He had his phone out. “The hell is the exact quote?”
We looked at Miller, who said, “Sorry. I’ve lapsed.”
Bandoni typed and scrolled. He said, “Fucking fat fingers.” Then: “Got it. King James version. The exact words are, ‘But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?’”
“This asshole thinks he’s the son of man?” Miller’s voice cracked on the last word.
The tech spoke up. “What about the other words? What are those from?”
“The life of the flesh is in the blood.” Bandoni looked at Bell. “You’re the doc. What does it mean?”
“Unless you’re looking for a literal explanation,” she said dryly, “I’m not the person to ask. My knowledge is limited to hearing the quote in a hematology class.”
But this one I knew.
When I was little, my parents had sent me to Sunday school, even though they weren’t churchgoers. Maybe they figured if I had a place in heaven, I’d help them trade up. I recognized the words on John Doe’s back because we’d been forced to memorize them, and they had scared the crap out of me.
“Those words are from the Bible, too,” I said.
Bandoni’s eyes above the mask were intent. “Go on.”
“Leviticus.” I closed my eyes, summoning the memory. “It goes something like this. For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make an atonement for your souls upon the altar, since it is the lifeblood that makes atonement.”
I opened my eyes. Bell, Bandoni, and Miller were staring at me.
Miller whistled. “You’re like a quotation book.”
“Just a weird childhood.” I looked at our victim. The words on his skin seemed to convulse as we moved in and out of the glare from the ceiling-mounted surgical light. “Betrayal and atonement. This guy wants to even some score.”
“I hate religious nuts more than just about anything.” Bandoni glowered. “Quoting from the Bible.”
“He’s on a mission,” I said. “Ordained by God.”
“Or the devil,” Miller said.
“Your gutter punk.” Bandoni’s faded-blue eyes sparked. “The guy who calls himself Damn Fox. Didn’t your source say he has Bible verses tattooed on him?”
“That’s right.”
“We gotta find his righteous ass.”
“We’ll get him at Leopard’s Den,”
